TAIG Atari Newsletter 1985-02

N CITIES

'

Interset Group, which is
iation with Atari, Carp,
with which TAIG exchanges

Phil Seifert
Mark Neuman
Dave Stengel

lied, of all things, Bounty Bob
Software. This sequel to Miner
of the na«e sequel, since east
the original, right? This one is

it is a stupid gaae-^
Strikes Back fro# Big Fivi
2049 er is not deserving
sequels are not as good as

such better than the original

Oligfr Igor Stxavir^

’ w © ^

It all started inn
User Friendly and q

Interest Group

Twin Cities Atari
684 Queen Avenue South
Rich-field, MN 55423

St. Louis Park Rec. Center
5005 nest 36th Street
St.‘ Louis Park, linnesota

gaffie in. "Now! I * * * * * * 8 , I cried. With the current dearth in
software for our beloved sachine, I was quite willing to
buy almost anyting that came out. He handed me this green
package and snickered something about sy doom being at
hand. Immediately, I rushed home to try this thing cut and
I saw that it was a Miner 204?er type game (I did not look
at the package to see what it was, after all, it was NEW!).

Plugging in this cartridge turned out to be no problem, I
finally remembered where to put this thing in. It had been
that long. Ok, I says to myself, lets beat this game cold.

I am an expert at the original, this thingie can't be too
tough, right? Wrong. There are 25 levels of play to this
thing and there are 4 different difficulty levels. One or
two people can play, but, since my dog still has not
learned to use a joystick without chewing on it, I played
alone. All I am going to tell you is, that after having
this stupid blasted game for 4 weeks, I have not gotten
past level 10!! And to add insult to injury, I had to have
a 9 year old girl show me how to get past level 8! AND EVEN
WORSE!: Bob Floyd he SPACE president is even up to level
12!!!! Now I know I am losing my touch. Oh well, guess I am
gettin old. Hopefully by the meeting, I will have gotten to
level 25, any takers?

Ok, now is the time for the serious stuff. This users group
is having officer elections in April, came rain or shine. 1
am making my announcement now, I AM NOT RUNNING AGAIN FOR
ANYTHING. It is not that I don't want to, but, that I don't
have the time do so. I feel the group would be better off
with fresh blood up there. Most of my time now is being
occupied with beating that stupid game and doing some
programming work for a few companies. Now, you are probably-
wondering what it would take to be President, right? Not
much, after all, I was president for a couple of years.
Actually, you do not need to be a computer genius or a
super manager. This group is just a bunch of people
gathered to promote Ataris and help owners of the machine.
A complete novice could do what I have been doing and most
likely do a better job of it. Of course, if you don't want
to be President, there are some other positions available,
like Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary. These are
our elected posts, please give some consideration to
running for one of them. Remember, our group is only going
to go as far as our members participate.

I am pleased to announce the formation of a sub-branch of

our group. This branch is calling itself N.A.6.S. and will

be meeting on the third Wednesday of every month at User
Friendly. The first meeting will be before you get this

newsletter but the next one will be in March. The main
purpose of this group was to provide a meeting for those

people who live in the northern section of town. The
members of this group will be members of TAI6 and receive

all the goodies that you people do. Of course, you are all
welcome to come to this meeting also if you like. One of

the biggest things I am hoping branches will do for our
group is bring in new people who were daunted by joining

the main one because it was too far away. If you would like

to form others in your local areas, go ahead. The dues for
the branches is really for TAI6 and this will also help
r bring in new money for the group to do things.

Speaking of money, our dues are going up on the 1st of
March. No longer will it be $10 but now it is $15. So, if
you want to save yourself five bucks, time to join up
quick!! Hopefully, with this money, we will be able to plan
better things to do, things that cost us money. Like
Eaaefairs??? (ya know what I mean, trophies and things.)

Nell, because of my time contraints, I was not able to
persuade Atari to send someone up here and give us a demo
of their new machines. Maybe we could get a machine later
on for the March meeting, but, don't count on it. Also, I
want to correct something that I said about the new ST's. I
mistakenly thought the drives were going to be coming with
the machine. No, they are extra. How much? Rumors are $100
and $200 for the 25 0k and 500k drive respectively. Ne shall
see. I am going to get one of these machines as fast as I
can so I can play with it. Nhen I get one, I am sure that I
will tell you all about it (If 1 can get myself away from
Bounty Bob!).

That is all for this month that I want to talk about. See
you all at the meeting.

FREE COMPUTER

The club need someone to take over the club computer. This
is a 400 with 48K and fastchip. It is idea as a backup
computer for the kids or if you what to try starting up a
BBS. You must be a member and must make sure the computer
is at each meeting. See Dick Johnson at the meeting if
interested.

All Atari Owners

Wizard^

Work a

your home computer center

Post Haste Square. County Rd 18 & 36th Ave No
New Hope (North Side of Bldg ) 545-2136

In Stock:

•Printers
•Printer Interface
•Word Processors
•Doubler For Atari Drive

#

• ‘Modems
‘ ‘Modem Interface
•Atari Software

ATTENTION:

10% Discount to all TAIG
and SPACE member on regualr
priced items at Wizards Nork

2

— Repair Service Offered —

F’hylis & Gordy Landsman

Son Of ED
by Dave Stengel

ADVENTURING
by Dave Stengel

There is not a heck of a lot I
would like to talk about, so I will
make this short. We have developed
a new feature for the newsletter. I
cal 1 it the crossword puzzle. There
just happens to be one in this mon-
th's newsletter. It was done with a
program called Crossword Magic. It
turned out pretty good. The puzzle
inserted in this month's newsletter
came on the disk. If you find your-
self in a creative mood sometime in
the near future, please design your
own crossword puzzle either on that
program, if you have it, or write
it down on paper. If you like, just
write down the lists of clues and
answers and we'll do the rest. Wow!

Now, aren't you motivated?
have not heard, I can now

I f you
down 1 oad

articles off the BE<S, when it's up.
FT ease write it on Atari writer or a

compatabl e file, if possible. I'll
except anything, so you do not have
to meet those standards. It is only
common courtasy to thank the people
who have already sent, articles. To

you I take off my hat. Well, I hope
you like the newsletter. Please let

us know how you feel. Take care.

rvi

5 cerv2-S .

Well, I still have not receiv-
ed any requests or questions on any
adventure. It you happen to enjoy
a column like this, you will send a
request o-f some sort. Otherwise my
column will last about three news-
letters, tops. But anyways, on with
the show. Even though there were
not any requests for these, I will
give answers for ZORK II, DEADLINE.

One of the puzzles, in ZORK 2,
that I found to be difficult was at
the well room. You're probably won-
dering how that bucket is used. A
very good question. Remember that
•ford that you crossed in the begin-
ning? Well you must get the teapot
from the gazebo and go back to the
stream. There you fill the teapot
with water and return to the well.
Get in the bucket and pour water in
the bucket and it will rise to the
top. Take the water out and it de-
sends to the bottom. Once you are
at the top, there are even harder
puzzles to solve. Write me i f you
want the answers.

DEADLINE is a cruel adventure
indeed. A few hints on solving the
game can help, and are almost need-
ed to solve the game:

1. Look the calender over real
well. In fact turn the page.

2. Ask the gardener about his
f 1 owers at about 1 1 : 00 to 11: 30 .

3. Read the second section of
the newspaper .

If you need direct answers for
these or any other puzzles, call.

(475-1472)

One more thing. I have answers

for such games as:

Mask of the Sun
Ser p en t s Star
Enchanter
Sorcerer

* and more

Ed: Next week I will print a walk-

thru.

4

$

%

*

1

\

1

Basic 2

by Dave Stengel

Variables can also be made to

Last time I discussed the ever
wasteful 1 (most of the time) REMark
statement, and the widely used GOTO
and PRINT statements. Hopefully you
understand how to use these state-
ments in a program. Just to remind
you, here is a sample program from
last months newsletter:

10 REM *** THIS IS A SAMPLE ***

20 PRINT "MY NAME IS ED."

30 PRINT
40 GOTO 20

print characters, but not by them-
selves. They must be accomp onied by
a dollar sign ($) . It’s new name is
string. This is how it’s used:

10 A=20

20 N*="J0E SHM00"

30 PRINT

40 PRINT "MY NAME IS " ; N*

50 PRINT "MY AGE IS " ; A

When you RUN the program, you
get something like this:

You probably have noticed that
I did not type anything in quotes
after the PRINT statement in line
number 30. This will print a blank
line. The program above is known
as a loop. It starts at line num-
ber 20, since the REM does not pre-
form a function but is only used to
place footnotes inside the program,
and goes to line 30 and then 40 and
line 40 instructs the computer to
go back to line 20 and do the whole
process again, like a loop.

Now that we have reveiwed what
we have learned, I will attempt to
teach you something t h a t y o u h a v n ’ t
learned (If you have learned it, I
didn’t teach you it). You may re-
member var i ab 1 es f r orn a 1 geb r a c 1 ass
in ninth or tenth grade. Well they
reappear in BASIC programming and
are necessary in almost every BASIC
program. If you may recall, a var-
iable is a letter t hat st an d s f or a
number, such as X or Y.

With a var i ab 1 e you may assi gn
any numerical value (within reason)
and use it over many times. For ex —
ampl e:

10 LET X— 20

MY NAME IS JOE SHM00
MY AGE IS 20

Notice the semi-colons at the end
of the quotation marks? Those are
necessary if you are going to print
a variable or string after it. Just
as an extra that may come in handy,
t r y u s 1 n g the s t a t e m e n t G R . 0 in t h e
progr am :

10 GR.O

20 REM ** SEE HOW DUMB THESE ARE

30

V 1

A — J.

40

M$=" MARCH"

/

50

REM

60

PR I NT-

"IT IS

ONLY

n . Y . »»
5 A ?

MORE

70

PRINT

"MONTH

UNTIL

. THE

" ; m

80

PRINT

"USERS

MEET!

NG ! !

it

90

END

**

The END instructs the program
that it has come to the end of the
program. It also is not necessary
but serves its purpose. You’re prob
ab 1 y w o n d e r i n g w h y I e v e n b o t h e r t o
use var i ab 1 es . Why don ’ t I j ust. put

the numb

er an

d

the

s t. r

i. n g

i n

to

t

he

pr i nt

st

a t erne

n

t

-~~i i — .

7 So

I c

an

a

It

er

t

h e

progr a

m

mor e

e

a

si. 1 y .

I

can

a 1

so

i

n-

sert a

n

ew va

1

u

e for

m

or

V

/\

an

y —

where

el

se i n

the pr

ngr

a m .

I ’

v e

h

ad

enough

o

f bei

n

g

a teach

er

•f

or

t

od

a y

(yes,

today) „

Have

f Lin

tt

B

ye

n

Get

1 ost !

i

Just

k

i d din

g-

or

10

You may or may not
the LET statement, both
the same function. So,
to PRINT X, the number
printed on the screen.

wish to use
examples do
if you were
20 would be
Neat, eh?

4

Anybody
caul d
advert! se
here !

ATARI ONLINE
By Mark Nelson

The -following is the beginning
of a new monthly column, "Atari On-
line"- The column will be of help
for beginners and will also provide
reviews on anything from modems, to
different BBS’s, to modem programs,
to bulletin board programs- Almost
anything that has to do with tele-
communications could appear in this
column. I am also allowing any in-
put- If you have a question that is
begging for an answer, you can ask
me and I will try to pub! i h it in
this column, and then answer it. Of
course, you do not have to give any
names .

F r or me, it all began around 3
years ago. It was December the 15th
1981. There it was.... my brand new
A t ar i 800 with 16k. NOW ! An d w i t h
it, a Atari 810 disk drive. And do
you know what? I only paid $800 for
the computer-what a deal! Exactly
one year later, I had received my
C. It oh 8510a printer. Now, all I
needed was a modem. Well, one day
as I was working, I decided put the
money I earned toward a modem. Not
an expensive one, but something to
get me started. My first modem was
a Vol ksmodem. It cost me $59 and an
extra $11 for the cable. From that
day on, I’ve been rapped up in com-
puters, modems, and anything else
that has to do with them. A modem
makes things exciting. At least it
seems to. Anyways, that is all it
takes.... and it’s well worth it.

Okay, I did it.... I bought my-
self a modem. Now what do I do with
i 1 7* F o r n o w , I ’ m a s s u m i n g t h a t y o u
have a non-autodial modem. Wh i c h i s
just that. Modems that autodial al-
low the user to enter the number he
wishes to dial using the keyboard,
and then i t dials for you . But w i t h
a non-autodial modem, you have to
dial and t hen flic k a sw i t c h . Th i s
switch is usually known as the Talk
and Data switch. (Or something like
that). To get on a bulletin board,
you have to call the board, wait
for a high pitched tone, then flick
that switch, and, wow, you are on!
Of course, you must have software

which runs, or drives, your modem.
But it is not hard to find and very
inexpensive as most of it is public
domain. If you need any of these,
the T.A.I.G. program library should
supplement you with a fair program
and from there you can get better
programs by downloading them off of
other BBS’s (Bulletin Board Sys) .
Downloading is what allows the user
to receive a file from the BBS that
they are on. Or in other words, the
BBs is •’sending’ you the program.

Now that you know how to call
a board, you must get access. Today
I am going to explain how to gain
access to the T.A.I.G. BBS. After
you have made your connection, its
going to ask for your full name or
your user number. Usually, all you
have to do is type "NEW" or hit re-
turn and then you will have to fill
out a type of application. You us-
ually have to supply this info:

(1) Your name and address.

(2) Computer used.

( 3 ) H ome p h one.

( 4 ) A p ass wor d .

Of t en ot h er q uest i on s will
a 1 so . However , on the T . A
y o u a r e g i v e n i n s t r u c: t i o n s

to gain
you are
have to
operator
i n g t o
access

hts* ct k e d
I . G . BBS
on how

access. On this BBS, after
g i ven t h e ma i n men u , you ’ 1 1
h i t p t o 1 e a v e t he system
( s y s o p > a m e s s age e x p 1 a i n —
h i m / h e r t h a t y o u w o u 1 d like
t o t h e h □ a r d . You’ll be re-

el u i r ed t o t ell the Sysop the infor-
mal: i on 1 i st ed above . Af ter t h is is
c amp 1 et ed , all you must d o is wait,
f o r a b o u t H d a y s , u n t i 1 y o u ’ r e v a 1 -
i dated. After this time period has
P a s s e d a n d y o u h a v e b e e n v a 1 i dated,
y o u rn -a y 1 e a v e m e s sage s , upload and
d o w n 1 o a d , a n s o the r n e a t t h i n g s . By
p r e s s i n g ’ ? ’ y o u ar e g i. v e n a m e n u
a n d I t h .i n k y o u c: an get mor e inf or —
m a t i o n a b o u t t. h e B B S b y typing ’ H ’ .

t h is ha s a n s w e r e c:l y o ur ques —
Bu t i f n ot , g i ve Mar k a cal 1
5932 and I will give you a

I hope
t

a i

l ons

irn

hel pi ng hand

1 o o k f o r B B S 1 i s ting i n c 1 u d e d
i n t h i s mon t h s newslett er «

HOMEPAC GROUP PURCHASE
b y D i n k J oh n son

Wizards Work has agreed to ar~
r a n g e a g r o u p p u r c h ase o f H o m e P a c ,
the new 3 in i package that was re-
viewed in the March Antic and the
December and March ANALOG’S., all of
w h i c h w e r e v e r y f a v o r a b 1 e . T h e r e
tail price is $49-95 and will be a-
vail able for $35 plus tax, 30 per-
cent off- To order your copy, send
a check for $37- 10 to:

Wi sards Work
Post Haste Square
County Road 18 & 36th Ave.

New Hope, MN

or leave a check with an officer of
your users group- No checks will be
cashed until we meet a goal of 20
purchases has been met, and the or-
der sent in- The cut-off date for
or d er i n g will be Feb 2 7 - The pro-

grams will be at the meeting after
that time, or thay may be picked up
at Wizards Work after March 10th. A
short review: HQMETERM , the best of
the three, supports 835/1030 modems
and uploads and downloads any size
file in ASCII mode- It uses Smart
Macros which with some modems sup-
port auto— redial, Binary downloads
from CompuSer v and many other feat-
ures.. Currently, it will not sup-
port the MPP1000, but a fix is pro-
mised- H0METEXT is a very easy to
use war d pr ac essor wh i c h w ill war k
with an y p r i n t er , using wind ows for
menu driven options that can be by-
passed after you’ve become familar
with them- The only thing wrong is
the lack of memory for the text. It
contains 6600 bytes (2-3 pages). It
can link files together, which pro-
vides for larger documents. HOME-
FIND is a simple database program
that requires no previous defining
of f i el ds or f i 1 es » Th is, unf or tun
a t e 1 y , war k s s.g ainst it, i n t hat n o
generic searches can be done, plus
there is no report formating. How-
ever, it can be used with H0METEXT
i n a mail mer g a t y p e op er at i on . Even
if you do not need H0MEFIND, the
terminal program, or word processor
is worth it alone. With all three
programs, it’s a super buy!

Bulletin Board Systems

BBS NAME

PHONE NUMBER

AEK MDBS.

Anoka RBBS. -

Alpha SAM 2.

Captai n *’ s Log .

ABBS » . » « « « - . « . » -
Cedarwood
Ci tadel . »

Commodities. ......

C o m p u t e r K i n g d o m . .
Connection. .......

C . R . .............

u u u u m m

u tt u m

aaaaman urn

C.T.S. Want Ads...
Dcii k F a I* k ........ .

Deep That

Der Ubergott 3 s. . . ,
Digital News 1 e 1 1 er
Di s cover Software.

Doghouse.

ELec t r on i c Sh op p er
Gal act i c Bar ......

..........

Gambi t . „
Grapevine-24 Hours
Great White North.

t /\ j a r'

1 a M ii L u ri « L/ « .......

...

INN-24 Hours. « . .

K n i g h t s Of Round

Krackl ine

Last D i men t i on .

Metro— Net

Milly Ways

Minnesota PGA Golf

On-Target

Paul Secret Service
P i x e 1 3 P a 1 a c e ■ . . .

F* o 1 i c e Station. u . .
Post Office. ......

P. M. S. -24 Hour ....

Revel stone. .......

Saf eh ouse-24 Hour s
Search Institute. .
The Stronghold N. .
The Stronghold S. .
l.A.I.G. .««....««

Twin City Express
Val i c ar r ’ s Cast 1 e
19S5

. . 48S-
. . 427*

Q?(‘)

it is • V

T "77
. ■ ■«.' / /

. . 423

. . 338

. . 439

. . 934

6

941

m m * -i — r

. 324
. 934
. 420
. 938

5-

r>9 i

Q9Q

n . / •*— f

*1.

. 920-
. 739-
. 484-
. 454-
. 590-
. 423-
. 423-
. 457-
. 484-
. 636-
. 429
. 473
. 941
. 546
. 473

794

m / x.

. 934

929-

071 .

— y r ~ , /»

ai « / X- * i

. . 370

. . 588
. . 431
. .544

770,

. a / / U

. . 934

707,

mm/ 7

0879

7774

0384

7747

5016

1215

1101

5957

9208

9300

cr ~7 cr

Xmm 'mJ / VhJ

3751
2819
7535
8790
0567
055 1
7668
6953
4074
3636
6209
0689
-5048
-5048
-4139
-5925
-1618
-6929
-3376
-8519
-1013
-6668
-7158
-4880

q *~y

™ 2 * Cj xL - 2 *

-8966

-1492

-7066

-7905

-7856

-1612

-9058

-0506

-6710

-1985

Ed: Some of these listed my not be

up (uuhhhummm) . It is best to
call these plaices at night. It
would be nice of you to inform
us of any changes. Thanx.

(You notice I put these in be-
cause I need to take up space,
heh ! )

Jupiter Nissan
Nei 1 Bradl ey

This article is devoted to all
us gamers out there- Jupiter Mis-
sion is a BASIC program- It is sold
in a set of four disks for about 50
dollars. You also get a total of 4
Top Secret disks to help you along
when, or if, you get stuck- Jupiter
Mission is touted as part adventure
and part arcade- The back round of
the story is that your services are
requested by the g over merit to go on
a mission to Jupiter, to discover
the source of some mysterious ra.dia
si gnal s-

The game can be broken into 6
parts, which are:

1 . Shoot i ng Aster i ods

2. Repair Damage from part 1

3. Navigation/Science Lab

4. Landing Phase

5- Investigation Phase

6- Concluding Phase

Here is a summary of what each
part is all about:

1. Arcade Game: the object of this
is to shoot incoming asteroids with
the aid of your blaster.

2. Repair Damage: is pretty self —

explanitory. The way to win this is
to use the sound/color combination
to produce a "low pitch" sound, and
eventually repair the damage by el-
iminating the sound and colors com-
pi etel y .

3- Navi gat i on/Sci ence Lab: You now
have to figure out how to get your-
self to the Jupiter system, using a
simulation and applying thrust from
your engine. Hint: when you're sat-
isfied that you have applied enough
(the correct amount) of thrust, use
t h e v i ew mod e . On c e i n t h e system ,
you have to investigate Jupiter and
it’s moons to find the radio signal
using your science probes -

A.

Mak

e at least

one orbi

t of

t h e

pi anet .

B.

The

only safe

1 and i ng

area

i s

outside the

f orce-f

i el d

5. Investigation Phase: Now that
you are here, you must explore the
base. Hint: you will take 2 things
out of the base.

6- Concluding Phase: is the final
portion of the program. This is the
arcade-style part of the game, and
is not too difficult to complete if
you practice.

Jupiter Mission is an impres-
sive game, considering it was writ-
ten in Basic. LJnf ortunatel y , this
is also its major flaw. It takes a
few minutes to execute. I thought
that the game was too long. I easi-
ly got bored with each phase of the
game, as it involved a large amount
of repi t i ti on of various actions.

All in all, I would say Jupit-
er Mission 1999 is a masterpiece of
Basic programming. It ? s fun to play
but drags on too slow at times. I
feel the price is a little high for
what you get, as other programs for
a similar price offer (to me) more
of a challenge. It is not too dif-
ficult to complete, and will offer
many hours of playing time (40 hrs.
for myself). My personal rating is
a 5 out of 10.

Ed: I would just like to personal y
thank Mr. Bradley For this article.
He is currently enlisted in the
United States Navy and is not able,
of course, to come to our meetings,
but still enjoys the newsletter. He
would like to turn this into a semi
game column. We would appreciate
any feedback on the matter. It you
would like to have your own column
and are-? willing to take on the re-
sponcab i 1 i t i es, drop us a line.

Thank you.

4. Landing Phase: When you •’re sure
you have found the signal, you have
to ? launch' your landers, and go to
the alien base- Hints:

7

COMPUTERS

ACROSS CLUES

4. CIRCLE ON DISK

6. TEXT WINDOW UPWARD MOVEMENT

9. GOES WITH “THEN"

11. A PUZZLE IN WHICH WORDS FIT
INTO A PATTERN OF SQUARES

14. RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY

15. INPUT OR OUTPUT CHANNEL

16. A PROBLEM DESIGNED FOR TESTING
I NGENU I T Y

19. DETAILED GRAPHICS

20. DEVICE USED TO MARK LETTERING
ON PAPER

21. LAST NAME OF A NOTED FRENCH
SCIENTIST

26. PROGRAM WHICH CONVERTS SOURCE
CODE INTO OBJECT CODE

27. SMALLEST AMOUNT OF INFORMATION
A COMPUTER CAN HOLD

. BASIC COMMAND FOR STORING DATA

DOWN CLUES

1. AN ACRONYM FOR INTEGRATED
CIRCUIT

2. IN/OUT TERM

3. EIGHT TO A BYTE

4. IC MANUFACTURER IN TEXAS

5. BLINKS ON SCREEN

6. SEGMENT OF A DISK TRACK

7. READ ONLY MEMORY

8. CREATOR OF CROSSWORD MAGIC
10. DRAWINGS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

12. POWER UP

13. HARD OR SOFT

17. LIGHT EMITTING DIODE

18. MEDIA FOR STORING SOFTWARE
20. PROGRAMMABLE READ ONLY MEMORY

22. RUNOUT BASIC PROGRAM

23. LOWEST LEVEL COMPUTER LANGUAGE

24. A COUNTER FOR MEASURING TIME

25. A SPOT ON A TV SCREEN

28